


The Poisoned Fountain

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, One Shot, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-26
Updated: 2011-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the birth of her children, Padmé comes to terms with her new reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Poisoned Fountain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notrandomusername](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notrandomusername/gifts).



_Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain._

\-- John Locke

  
“He wasn’t himself,” Padmé argued, touching her throat.

Obi-Wan looked horrified, then guilty, then blank. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you,” he said.

“Gone, Skywalker is,” Yoda said quietly. “Consumed by the Dark Side. Only Vader remains.”

Anguish flickered across Obi-Wan’s face, and she thought she understood. This Dark Side was not a weapon that could be used for good or evil, but a corroding influence that had twisted Anakin from the moment he chose to use it. Choosing it, she thought, had been his last action as a free man.

 _I’m a person, and my name is Anakin!_

Padmé closed her eyes.

She knew there was still good in him, but -- perhaps not enough. Certainly not enough to protect her and the twins from harm at Palpatine’s hand, or his own. She’d learned that the hard way. And she’d never imagined she could follow him down this path, no matter what the cost.

She looked down into Luke’s small face, finally relaxing in sleep. He and Leia had both spent many of their first hours screaming, but where Padmé could soothe her daughter by feeding or rocking her, Luke seemed inconsolable. His sobs echoed around her chambers for hours on end, silenced only by unconsciousness.

Padmé had been weary already, between the fall of the government and her husband. But now, with a son who could not be comforted, a daughter whose easy temper vanished at any separation from her mother and brother, a pair of mourning Jedi, and no one to trust but Bail, she felt exhaustion eating at her, eroding her almost to nothing.

She glanced up at Obi-Wan. “Have you finished the blood tests?” she asked.

“Yes.” His expression told her all she needed to know.

“They’re Force-sensitive, then.” Anakin had been certain they would be, but she’d hoped --

Obi-Wan looked at her soberly. “Their midichlorian levels are too high for our tools to test, like --”

“Like Anakin,” she finished, lowering her eyes to her children, Luke in the crook of her arm, Leia sleeping in her cradle as Padmé rocked it. For a brief moment, she felt almost afraid of the grief-stricken man before her, had to repress the urge to clutch Luke against her, snatch up Leia, take them and _run_ , far away, far from Jedi, Sith, politics, everything. Anakin had seen this coming, months ago. It was the only fear he’d been willing to admit to her -- that their child would be taken from them, by war or death or the Jedi or anything else.

 _You can’t have them_ , she thought wildly. _Not my children. Not --_

She remembered, before everything had changed, how Anakin had taken such joy in the Force, whether flying or running at impossible speeds, his body little more than a blur of motion, or simply trying to impress her by holding her fruit in the air. It’d seemed less an ability than a part of him, as if he were not a mere mortal man, however extraordinary, but a force of nature barely confined to human form. Would it be like that for their children? Could she keep that from them?

“Luke won’t stop crying,” she whispered. “I’ve never been around babies much, I don’t know if it’s normal. But I feel like he’s suffering, and I can’t -- I can’t help him.” She ran a trembling finger over the tufts of fair hair. “I feel like he’s crying for his father.”

The Jedi were silent.

Padmé glanced up sharply, just in time to see agony and remorse twist Obi-Wan’s features. He seemed unable to look at her, turning away and half-covering his face. Yoda’s ears drooped.

“What is it?” she demanded. “You know something. It’s not --”

“Uncommon, it is, to form bonds in the Force,” said Yoda, “but not impossible. Especially not for these children.”

“Bonds?” said Padmé, thoroughly bewildered. “You mean, there’s some kind of . . . psychic . . . _thing_ between them and Anakin?” Alarm leapt into her eyes. “He’ll be able to find them?”

“Not _them_ ,” Yoda said.

This time, Padmé couldn’t keep her arm from tightening around her son. “Luke. You think he can sense Anakin in some way?” She looked over at Obi-Wan. “You said you spared Anakin's life. What’s going on? Why --”

Obi-Wan finally dropped his hand and looked in her direction, though he didn’t meet her eyes. “No,” he said. “I didn't spare him. I just didn’t _kill_ him. It’s . . . not quite the same thing.”

Luke stirred, and Padmé relaxed her grip on him, hoping she hadn’t woken him up. “What happened?”

“I defeated him in combat,” said Obi-Wan. “I . . . he fell into the lava. I never dreamed he’d survive. I took his lightsaber and left.”

Padmé recoiled. “You -- you --” Her eyes dropped to her son, fitful even in sleep. “You left him to _burn alive?_ But that's -- even Anakin didn't -- you --” She remembered Anakin, back when he’d been whole, saying _he’s like a father to me_ , and she stared at Obi-Wan in horror.

For the first time, it occurred to her that Anakin had been _anything_ but whole then. She’d seen his total dissimilarity from the cheerful, well-balanced child she remembered, his nervous loyalty, his erratic shifts of temper. She’d taken it for mere adolescent rebellion and tried not to think of the dead Sand People. Padmé swallowed.

Anakin could swear as much as he liked that he’d done it for her. The truth was that he’d been breaking down well before the war, before even meeting her again. Now --

She could imagine it: Anakin, even the not-Anakin he’d become, falling into lava, burning, screaming, and Obi-Wan, quiet, kindly Obi-Wan, abandoning him to die in torment. But if there was one thing about Anakin that would never change, Dark Side or no Dark Side, it was his sheer determination. He never, _never_ gave up. So he’d clawed his way out, somehow, and -- and if he’d felt the slightest hesitation before, it must be gone now.

Padmé looked down at her children: the tiny fists, the eyelashes dark against their pale, chubby cheeks, the chests expanding with their steady breaths. She didn’t know what she would do if one, or both, of them turned to the Dark Side. But she knew that whatever sins they might commit later, no matter how terrible they might be, Padmé could _never_ do to them what Obi-Wan had done to Anakin.


End file.
